In a spread spectrum communication system, the spread spectrum signal may be formed by phase modulating a narrowband signal by a pseudonoise (PN) code sequence. In such systems, effective recovery of the narrowband signal at the receiver requires synchronization between the received signal's PN code sequence and a local PN code sequence used to correlate the received signal. In prior art spread spectrum communication systems, synchronization tracking is usually performed by measuring the correlation at early and late times and forming a time discrimination function from such measurements to control the receiver's reference timing. However, since most spread spectrum systems correlate the received spread signal at RF, such "delay-lock" loop tracking schemes have utilized costly RF components. A baseband approach to the synchronization of the local and received PN code sequences is therefore desirable.